I’ve spent the last 15 years working for The New York Times, Dow Jones and Forbes, with minor stints at The New Yorker, InStyle and Vogue, among others. I've worked on the agency and corporate side, too, writing mainly for C-level and affluent readers. Fat Cats is drawn from that world—rich people and how they use money, for better and for worse, especially in the areas I care about: horse racing, food sourcing, politics and culture.
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Any Procter & Gamble, Johnson & Johnson, L’Oreal or Unilever brands in there? Of course. And they’re not the only CPG companies that test on animals, either. According to PETA, 219 animals die every minute in a U.S. lab, including mice, rats, cats, dogs, birds, rabbits, monkeys and other creatures. The tests range from Draize eye and skin irritation tests to force-feeding animals toxic substances.

If this is at odds with your values, there’s something you can do to stop it. Nothing radical, just a little brand switching—and you don’t have to forgo shiny hair, lips and floors to do it.

It’s Time To Stop Trusting The World’s Most Trusted Brands

What is it with trusted brands being frequent animal testers? Sure, no company wants to admit to it. Years ago, when animal testing was a legal requirement, keeping quiet about it was standard industry practice, so consumers were kept in the dark. But animal testing is no longer required. Many companies now use cruelty-free testing methods, whose results are just as effective, and in many cases, superior.

The market leaders could switch over, sparing animals, improving their products and gaining a new level of consumer confidence. That they don’t is a tip-off: they expect your blind trust and your dollars. But you don’t have to hand them over, not any more.

This is a more effective form of protest than signing e-petitions in my view. Sure, those are important, but what is it that the world’s best-known cruelty-free consumer advocate, Mahatma Ghandi, famously said? Oh yes: be the change you seek. Here’s an easy way to do it.

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Hi nelsoner and thanks for putting your comments in perspective. I don’t really want to turn this into a PETA issue. Their efforts to get CPG companies to switch to other testing methods are worthy, and the companies wouldn’t do it if there wasn’t a benefit to them. More than that, though, it’s serving consumers. Many (and I would suggest, most) Americans want to know what’s in their food, water, cabinets. The pharmaceutical industry naturally doesn’t want consumers questioning them. No company does. But it’s inevitable now that people have the ability to do it that they will pressure companies to change. In my opinion, this is long overdue. I do not, however, underestimate the inconvenience and cost of their doing so. This seems at the root of your comments, but not for me to judge.

Vickery, it is not just a matter of “convenience”, it simply is not possible to develop new drugs without animal testing. In fact, animal testing is extraordinarily inconvenient and is by far the most expensive part of preclinical research. If it were possible to replace it with in vitro assays or computer modeling, it would happen in the blink of an eye, based on cost alone and irrespective of the ethical issues.

If animal rights activists such as PETA were to come out and say that they don’t believe we have the moral right to experiment on animals irrespective of the benefits to human health, I would certainly respect that position, though disagreeing with it strongly. But the attempt to frame the issue of animal testing as a no-cost, feel-good choice is simply disingenuous.

You assume I think this is a matter of convenience and is low-cost and simply feel good. You also assume that for me, this is a PETA issue or an animal rights issue. Not true. For me, it is a consumer issue and PETA’s database is only one of a number of vehicles by which they are able to educate themselves. There are many others, of course. Will they turn all consumers into animal rights activists? Frankly, I think this is a bit or paranoia on the part of companies fearing they’ll have to bend to consumer demand. That time is coming, by the way. Perhaps companies are right to be scared.

As John2011 also notes below, there is no substitute for animal testing in pharmaceutical development. Anyone who says differently doesn’t understand the subject at all. However, even if there were a satisfactory substitute scientifically (there isn’t), it’s still the law–you can’t get a drug registered in any country in the world without it.

As for cost, animal testing is actually very expensive, and companies would very much love to replace it with in vitro tests, if they were predictive of human toxicology, even if only to weed out drugs that were later fated to fail in animal toxicology studies.

If you went to the FDA and asked them what they thought, they’d tell you that this is indeed an ethical issue, but that it’s about human safety, rather than animal rights.

Well I think you’re mixing apples and oranges. I have nowhere mentioned pharmaceutical testing. The focus of this article is on CPG and consumers (and companies) making choices. It would seem by your comments that you don’t think they’re smart enough to make the right ones. But that’s for consumers to decide, is it not?

Apples and oranges are being mixed, but the fruit salad actually starts with the quote, “According to PETA, 219 animals die every minute in a U.S. lab, including mice, rats, cats, dogs, birds, rabbits, monkeys and other creatures. The tests range from Draize eye and skin irritation tests to force-feeding animals toxic substances.” The large majority of this is highly justified required toxicology testing.

Certification is troubling unto itself. Things are certified as cruelty free or not cruelty free (cruelty filled?)–black or white. The certification of ideological purity is absolute. If one test was done 40 years ago on a rat, the consumer is sent the same message as if each batch is tested on monkeys before it is shipped out to stores. Is this black and white information really informing consumers, or is it an attempt to manipulate them to desired behaviors? Certification implies trust of the value system of the certifiers, and I don’t at all trust PETA.

Vickery: I agree with Nelsoner that animal testing is not a black and white issue. I object to the bunny emblem and the “cruelty free” phrase because I think its a marketing gimmick that grossly oversimplifies a complex issue by emphasizing a single aspect.

How would you react to an FDA requirement that instead of a bunny and a “cruelty free” label, all new products not tested in animals were required to carry the label “Warning: The SAFETY of this product has not been established in animal testing” in large black text?

Each label tells one side of a complex story. Some of the important details include:

1) What the is the value of the product (drugs for childhood leukemia >> new water-resistant mascaras)

2)What measures were taken to minimize the amount of testing needed and the risk to the animals.

3) What are the risks of exposing consumers to the specific product without prior animal testing? (In the case of KY jelly, one concern would be that many substances are readily absorbed into the bloodstream when administered intravaginally.)

I think this would best be handled by providing a link to a website describing the company’s animal testing policies rather than a slick marketing gimmick.

We do have some points of agreement, and I don’t want to understate these. I certainly would not support causing large numbers of animals to suffer in order to develop a new moisture free mascara. And I don’t think there are any new technological innovations in the development of hair care products that justify exposing large numbers of animals to the risk of serious injury either.

I don’t object to PETA because they are “a pain to the pharmaceutical industry”. I object to PETA because they deliberately spread false information in support of their political cause. If they ran ads on TV clearly stating their POV that testing drugs in animals was immoral irrespective of whether it was needed to develop new drugs, I’d have no problem with that. But knowing that they are unlikely to succeed in convincing the average voter to adopt this point of view, they attempt to sell the falsehood that animal testing is not necessary to the development of new drugs. This is what I find objectionable.

John2011, which false information are you accusing PETA of spreading here? Is it the number of animals used in animal experiments? Or is it the specific companies identified in its cruelty-free database?

If either of those, can you please substantiate? How many animals are actually used and what’s your source? Which companies have been misidentified?

Vickery, I’m not sure you read my note. I did not say anything about the issues you are asking about. Though given PETA’s track record, I would not be surprised to learn that their numbers are greatly exaggerated.

As I noted above, my concern is PETA’s continued insistence that animal testing is neither necessary nor relevant to the development of new drugs. I’m sure PETA has “experts” that will support this statement, just as there are “scientists” who support the teaching of Creationism in the public schools. But you’ll be hard pressed to find a single faculty member among the top 20 universities that supports either of these positions.

Suppose a member of your family had a multi-drug resistant bacterial infection that could not be treated with any currently approved antibiotic. You are offered a choice of two experimental antibiotics, both of which kill this specific strain of bacteria in cell culture with high efficiency. In animal testing, one cured 80% of the infected rats and showed no obvious toxicity. The other cured 20% of the rats and caused liver failure in half.

PETA will try to tell you that there is no predictive power in these assays, and you should just flip a coin to decide which antibiotic to choose. The FDA will tell you that it would never grant permission to dose the latter drug in a human patient.